


lost, and found

by foundCarcosa



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Blood Magic, Chasind Hawke, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-28
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-17 09:13:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1381978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elijah Hawke is troubled, and everyone in his household suffers... but Alain thinks he may have the solution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lost, and found

He’d had the same dreams before his father fell sick, dreams of blood turning black in the moonlight, dreams of red-eyed shades rising up from between the floorboards, dreams of a warped and decrepit house in the Fade where the dying go. Obaya the greenseer had listened when Elijah told her his dreams, listened and stroked her chin and nodded, but everyone else had said he just had an overactive imagination.

When Malcolm, Hawk-child, took to his bed, Obaya whispered to Elijah, “Never ignore your dreams, boy. They whisper truth.”

Now, years after taking the mage boy into his home and his bed and his heart, the dreams had returned, blacker than ever.

—

"I want to go outside," Alain said suddenly at the dinner table. They rarely got to eat together, all three of them, but after Leandra’s death, Elijah’s metaphorical arms began to tighten around Fenris and Alain. He insisted they take meals together like a family, whether in the dining room or in their chambers, insisted that Alain remain in the estate when Eli was not there, insisted that Bodahn not let anyone in if he wasn’t home.

Fenris raised his eyebrows when Alain spoke, his eyes flicking towards Eli.

"You can go outside. There’s a courtyard right out back." Elijah continued eating, his eyes fixed firmly on his plate. He tasted nothing, despite the determination with which he shoveled the food into his mouth.

"No, Eli… I mean, _out._ Into Kirkwall. I feel…” In the uncertain pause, Elijah knew Alain was measuring his words, weighing them, testing their potential sting. His hand tightened around the heel of bread, his jaw locking. “I feel like I’m in the Circle again, please don’t be mad, I know you don’t—”

"Have you so easily forgotten what you are?" Elijah ground out, his heart pumping too fast for him to catch it, quell it, quiet it. "An _apostate?_ Have you forgotten _where_ we are? A city teeming with templars, templars squeezed tight under Meredith’s iron fist? Outside this very door they lie in wait for one of my apostate friends — the ones they know about, that is — to fuck up so they can arrest us all!”

"I’m sorry, I know, I—"

"I have kept you safe!" The table trembled under Eli’s emphatic hand, and Fenris put his fork down and sat back, jaw flexing under his dusky skin. "And you compare my _home,_ the sanctuary I have given you, to the _Circle?”_

Alain’s mouth worked, but no more words came out. He pushed away from the table and fled.

—

"And you berated _me_ for frightening the boy,” Fenris commented later, as they undressed. Alain was nowhere to be found, and Elijah’s heart was a caged bird.

"I didn’t… I don’t know what’s wrong with me," Eli confessed, sitting heavily on the bed, his head in his hands. "I can’t think. My mind’s like… a swamp. And everything _hurts.”_

"You’re afraid." Fenris picked up Eli’s tunic and trousers, draped them over the chair in the corner, and came to sit next to him. "But you’re going to lose everything you’re fighting to protect, if you keep this up."

"I dream…" Eli’s voice caught, and he cleared his throat. "I dream the same dreams I had before my father died. _Black_ dreams, Fenris. Dreams that reek of magic, bad magic, sour terrible magic.”

Fenris placed a hand on Eli’s back, and when the big man curled into him, he wrapped his lyrium-scarred arms around him.

"I can’t fight magic, Fenris. _You_ know. What if the Fade takes him? What if he goes someplace where I can’t follow?"

—

He found Alain in the courtyard early the next morning, staring up at the birds of prey coasting on the air currents.

"I think I am beginning to understand Decimus," he said slowly, in a voice Eli didn’t recognise, and his ribcage tightened like an iron vise.

—

"If he becomes a blood mage, Elijah…" Fenris’ eyes flashed dangerously, his scowl fearsome to hide the abject fear.

"No. It won’t happen." Elijah paced, hands curling and uncurling, the beast in him snapping at the bars and yanking at the chain. "It can’t happen. Why would he do that to me?"

"He’s not doing it _to_ you, you fool. He’s doing it _for_ you.”

"That doesn’t make any _sense!"_

"When was the last time you felt utterly helpless and completely alone? What did _you_ do?” The beast growled, an echo in the back of his mind, and Eli shuddered. “You make him feel like a prisoner, whether you like it or not. The only difference between you and a templar is that he knows you better than that... and he loves you.”

"What do I do, Fenris? What do I do?"

"I’m not the one you should be asking."

—

"Alain?"

"You sound afraid of me." The mage’s voice was somber, distant.

"It’s dark in here, why are you sitting in the dark?" Elijah reached for the shades, but Alain barked a _no,_ and Eli jerked back.

"I like it here. Like this."

"Alain, I… I’m sorry. About the things I said, about keeping you cooped up in here… I am afraid of losing you. I just… _keep_ losing people, and…"

"I’ve always been lost." Alain was but a mere shadow in the darkened parlour, and Elijah wanted to approach him, enfold him, bring him back into the light. But he didn’t recognise this man, this shadow with the somber voice.

"I was wrong," Elijah whispered, "I was wrong, let me fix it, _please,_ Alain…”

"It’s all right, Elijah. I’ll be fine.  
You deserve not to be troubled by me anymore.”

—

Fenris woke and found the space beside him empty for the first time in a long time.  
The sky outside the window was a shade of dusky red that made his stomach roil.

"Where is he?" he asked Orana, and Orana shook her head, and before she could say anything, Fenris had run back into the bedroom for his clothes and armour.

—

Alain stepped into the Chantry and found it shadowed and mysterious, the sun unavailable to fill it with golden light.

He thought of Elijah, the way the sun always seemed to surround him like a corona, and tears sprung to his eyes. The sun had left him lately, and he was lost, too. He just didn’t see it. He wouldn’t.

Spirits — _demons,_ the Circle would call them, but Alain wasn’t so quick to judge — told him that Eli would always seek to control him, that he would never be his own man, that the only thing left to do was to show everyone how powerful he truly was, how fearsome he could be — him, the shy pretty mage, the boy-man that well-meaning people wanted to coddle and protect, who couldn’t speak a firm word without apologising for it right after.

 _There’s only one thing to do,_ they whispered, but once again… he was afraid.

"A maleficar killed the Lady Leandra," he said, to the bronzed Andraste, to the silent Maker, to the flickering candles, to whatever and whomever was listening. "A maleficar made Fenris bitter and scarred. Everything Elijah loves was ruined by blood magic. I can’t… I can’t do that. I can’t."

 _Forget him,_ the shadows whispered. _This is about you._

"He is part of me, too. And I him. He needs me, and who's ever needed me before, ever? I _can_ be strong without becoming a monster," Alain resolved, his hands clasped tightly in front of him as if in prayer. "I can help Eli without hurting him. I _can._ I’ll do it. I’ll do it because I’m… I’m a lover, not a fighter. Not a killer. A lover. I am love. That’s who I am. That’s who I am."

When the Chantry exploded in blazing light a few moments later, Alain thought the sun had come out to shine proudly upon him.

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS NOT HOW IT HAPPENS I SWEAR HE DOESN'T DIE I could never kill Alain, okay. I just like dramatic endings, don't hate me, augh --


End file.
